Two key decisions have been issued from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (Board) this Thursday regarding abuse of process. The first, Patent Quality Assurance, LLC, v. VLSI Technology LLC, IPR2021-01229, Paper 102, is a precedential decision where the Director of the USPTO Kathi Vidal held that Petitioner Patent Quality Assurance (PQA) abused the Inter-Partes […] In recent years the Western District of Texas has become an increasingly popular destination for patent litigation, in large part due to the litigant friendly rules propagated by Judge Albright. The Western District of Texas (as well as the Eastern District of Texas, another popular district for patent litigation) is part of the 5th Circuit. […] On December 3, 2022, the United States Patent and Trademark Office will shorten the response deadline for Trademark office actions from 6-months to 3-months. This shortened deadline will apply to all office actions issued on or after December 3, 2022. There will be an opportunity to file one 3-month extension for an additional fee. The […] Inventor Sholem Weisner sued Google LLC for patent infringement of four patents (10,380,202, 10,642,910, 10,394,905 and 10,642,911) in the District Court for the Southern District of New York in 2020. Weisner’s patents all shared the same specification which generally described ways to “digitally record a person’s physical activities and ways to use this digital record.” […] In a new precedential decision released September 28, 2022, the Federal Circuit overturned a decision from the Northern District of California. The lower court’s decision granted summary judgement for defendant Kollective Technology, finding all claims of plaintiff-complainant Cooperative’s ‘452 patent ineligible under 35 U.S.C. §101. Cooperative’s ‘452 Patent relates to systems and methods for structuring […] On September 30, 2022, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) consolidated and replaced four legacy search tools with a single Patent Public Search tool. The new tool is intended to streamline the search process for users and to incorporate new, useful features. The legacy tools that were phased out include: Public-Examiner’s Automated Search […] Maier & Maier partner, Stephen Kunin, has again been named by Virginia Lawyer’s Weekly as a Go To Lawyer for Intellectual Property Law. The selected attorneys were nominated by their colleagues and chosen by a panel from Lawyers Weekly. The full list and individual profiles can be read here. Maier & Maier is pleased to announce that distinguished partner, Stephen Kunin, presented a Strafford webinar, “Overcoming Sect. 101 Rejections: USPTO Guidance, Recent Decisions to Meet Sect. 101 Patent Eligibility Requirements” on Tuesday, August 16. The webinar is available for purchase on the Strafford website: Here. The USPTO has dramatically increased rejections under 35 USC 101 […] As Decentralized Autonomous Organizations become an increasingly popular means to bring global networks together, the legal uncertainties create opportunities for improvement and advancement. Blockchain technology has been an ever-growing development in creating shared data networks that verify and save various transactions. The newest development, Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAO), takes blockchain tech a step further by […] The Federal Circuit Court enforced the plain language of a confidentiality agreement to prevent an IPR proceeding from going before the PTAB. In the summer of 2020, Nippon Shinyaku Co., Ltd. and Sarepta Therapeutics, Inc. entered into a mutual confidentiality agreement relating to a potential partnership for a Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy therapy. As a part […]